


compliance measures

by gimmeshellder



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Attempted Mind Control, F/F, Forced Orgasm, Multiple Orgasms, Rape/Non-con Elements, no physical contact between anyone but definitely sexual things going on here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 20:56:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4320393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gimmeshellder/pseuds/gimmeshellder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peridot gets a bit drunk on power during an interrogation. (and maybe develops a tiny crush.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	compliance measures

Surveillance rounds reveal yet another door – near the engines, this time – pockmarked with half a dozen dents.

Unbelievable.

Aren’t escorts supposed to be of _service_ to their charges? Assist them? (By the Diamond, at least refrain from  _destroying_ their _ship_ ). Jasper has been a horror in the corridors since pulling off of Earth. Nonstop glower. Blundering hulk of knitted brow and shoulder bulge over  _Rose Quartz_.

Peridot knows better: Rose Quartz is gone. Whoever she was. If a wormy little steven is powerful enough to overtake a supposed warlord and pluck out her gem, well. What was she worth to begin with?

Jasper’s deluded. Old battleaxes, chasing war stories.

Peridot snorts. (And then resettles her visor because fuck, that hurt her nose.)

Rose Quartz’s gem _is_  recovered, however. And a quick perusal of the info hub for this waste of a star system clues Peridot in that such a recovery could give her all kinds of rattles and pats down the promotional pipeline. _If_ she can collect more information. At least some bare facts about it. (Before Peridot’s time, really.)

Jasper is mostly useless at explicating the details but luckily for Intel, this ship  _is_ still carrying a competent representative. After a few hours of swallowing up file after file of accounts and documents concerning the core Earth insurgents, she feels comfortable carrying on as needed with their supply of hostiles. Even solo.

Actually,  _especially s_ olo.

Well.

It’s fine. Manageable, to go solo. She can handle it. Peridot’s just lucky the Earth hostiles have a pearl with them.

She finally tears herself from the surveillance footage of the guttered door (flicks an idle pattern over the control panel, too, for maintenance robonoid dispatch) and turns to another screen displaying another intel catalog. Fifth one she’s scoured. The generation of pearl they’ve taken into custody is an old one – several times older than Peridot, even – but the override features should still be on file. Somewhere.

Peridot scowls, and flickers another pattern. It’s more tedious than an oil change but she paces herself because this part is the easiest.

Interrogation, though.

Peridot is  _competent_ , but. Not proficient. Exactly. No practitioner of any markedly significant frequency or skill. She’s a tech, for fuck’s sake. Her primary focus is solitary maintenance, outpost reconnaissance and the like. It’s been centuries since the last time Peridot has ferried hostiles -- much less interacted with them -- but she still considers her chances higher acting solo in lieu of getting shackled with some knuckle-dragging battleaxe.

So she’ll go it alone. Fine.

Too bad she can’t start the mission over with that in mind. Evidently, her escort’s tactical prowess fails to extend beyond the battlefield since she had also tossed their captives in  _adjacent holding cells_ , within  _perfect earshot_ of each other.

Just!  _Unbelievable!_

And far too late by now to separate them: both have regenerated quickly and now lean against their shared cell wall, talking furtive and low. They look… oddly at ease. Given the circumstances. Even when unable to see each other. No doubt planning escape. Strategy. Something.

Peridot snorts.

Next time she’ll stipulate a lower-class escort. Some nice, genial glass, or cobalt. A nickel, even. Someone a little more pliant, so she can tell them outright when they do something fucking stupid.

Relocation this late in the game would imply she had made a mistake – not only to the captives, but also whoever read her incident report. And she would have to get Jasper to help relocate them. And Peridot is  _not_  dealing with that rattletrap tragedy right now.

Besides. She can leverage this. Never let it be said that Peridot is inflexible.

She waves her hand, tugging down a levi-display that brings up more detailed footage: close-ups on both cells. The amethyst is an unfortunate curiosity but Peridot instead focuses a tight frame on the pearl. She squints. It was hard to get a good look during the first contact, but Peridot sees now that the pearl has a minor defect.

Well.

Pretty major, actually. The gem’s structure had been somehow deformed – elongated? – to an awkward, oblong ellipse. Though whether through an incidental production malformation or a punitive alteration was... difficult, to say.

Peridot catches her hand halfway to her own smooth gem, brow cramping. Puts her hand down again. She licks her lips. (The visor helps.)

Hopefully the deformity has had little to no impact on the pearl’s failsafe features, which a tidy  _ping!_ from the monitor alerts Peridot have been found. Good. The temptation to test it remotely from the safety and plausible deniability of the control bridge is  _powerful,_  but. Better not. Would probably rob the surprise she needs to squeeze the amethyst. Which might not even work, now that she thinks.

Peridot sits and listens to the control panel hum for a moment, frowning. Nerving herself. She’s frowning and nerving still as she exits the control bridge with her personal built-in display, fully armed with the failsafe sequence.

Peridot neglects to bring a destabilizer because if she brought it along, it might actually be used. And she needs _answers,_ not invalids. Not like they could get to her from behind the field, anyway.

The hostiles might be relaxed, hopefully, seeing her ostensibly unarmed. But judging by the way they both taper off their low exchange as she approaches, and both rise to their feet carefully, that’s a bust.

Fine. Peridot doesn’t plan to play buddies, anyway.

“Greetings,” she says.

Well. She tries, but her voice cracks. The pearl’s eyes narrow and the amethyst barks a laugh. Fuck. Peridot rolls on, keeping her professional stride.  “We are en route to Homeworld, where you will be processed for your alleged crimes against Her Authority.”

Silence. The amethyst is livid but cocky – her rounded shoulders and putty chin are set to threat but she just looks ridiculous. She opens her mouth, but pauses, and shoots a look to her left, nose crinkling.

Peridot lets another moment pass before pressing on. “Do you have any statement to posit against your allegations?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“ _Amethyst -_ -”

Okay. Good start.

Peridot bites back an eyeroll and a sneer. This whole exchange is being documented on surveillance footage, so she plans to keep herself civil. Even if the army brat doesn’t. “You’ve no doubt decided to remain quiet rather than try to defend yourself.”

“She’s just gonna stand here and bug us all the way there, Pearl.” The amethyst is seizing Peridot up, cracking her knuckles. “May as well lemme fuck with her.”

“Don’t.”

Peridot configures her fingers to form the screen of her personal display while the two bicker.

“Listen, greenbean, just drop this murder window crap and _then_  we’ll talk,” the amethyst spits. The way she’s glaring and posturing -- gem glowing, too, like she’s thinking of drawing a weapon -- makes it so clumsily clear what she means.

Peridot almost feels embarrassed for her. Anyone who listens to a pearl over their own judgment is no one to worry about. She clears her throat.  “I’ll ask again if you’d like to address your allegations.”

The amethyst opens her mouth but it’s the pearl who pipes up, “What exactly  _are_  our allegations?” and that’s when Peridot’s patience slips.

“Silence.” Peridot cuts her eyes to her right and glares. “Speak when spoken to.”

The both of them flinch. And then the amethyst  _explodes._  “What the fuck? Don’t talk to her like that! You literally  _just_ asked us about this allegation shit!”

Peridot rolls her eyes. “ _Your_  allegations. A pearl can’t be charged.”

“… the fuck are you talking about?” Her confusion’s even uglier than her posturing. “This makin’ any sense, Pearl?”

The pearl has gone very quiet. Peridot glances over and watches a slow, pouring dread – her eyes are a little wider and she mouths “oh.”

Peridot forges onward. Poor form for interrogation, but maybe seeing how hopeless their circumstances are will loosen their jaws: “When we return to Homeworld, you, the steven, the sapphire and the ruby will likely be turned over to military custody for further questioning. Maybe the pearl, temporarily.” The pearl’s override sequence is nearly ready – she fiddles further with the setting on her personal display. “After that, the pearl will be hard reset and repurposed to serve some other objective function.”

Military sentry, or administrative clerk. Kindergarten coordinator. Something. Pearls are too valuable a resource to be shattered on principle.

“Pearl, what is she _talking_ about?”

For her part, the pearl seems to understand most of what’s happening. She winces, and opens her mouth. “Amethyst, it…” Opens it again. “We changed things, when we came to Earth. After we won.  But it’s different, on Homeworld. Things are different. It…”

Her mouth opens again but her chin sinks, and she closes it.

“We have record of a pearl acting with Rose Quartz and the Earth insurgents, but a pearl cannot be held accountable for compromised function. Poor custodians gave the orders to defect, and poor custodians are held culpable.” Peridot glares, and the amethyst reciprocates. “That means you _._ ”

“ _I didn’t even exist then!_ ”

Whatever. “Let the court sort it out.” The reality now is that this pearl needs to be refocused to obedience, and pumped for intel.

Peridot turns to her now, speaking loudly. “Do you understand the circumstances? I’m going to executively refocus your objectives until you reach a compliant state. Then, you will answer my questions.”

She wonders if she should have asked the question last – she has never spoken to a pearl directly, and the varied input might be too confusing to process – and sure enough, the pearl’s face looks pained.

The sequence is set for use. Peridot gestures to the amethyst with it. “I will stop at any time, once you feel open to questioning.”

“What’s that gonna do to us?”

“Not ‘us’. Just the pearl.”

“Not again,” the pearl whispers.

“What’s wrong? Pearl?” From the way it shows in the amethyst’s voice now, the fear is infectious.

“Just… stay calm.” She seems to be struggling to recall something. Her eyes dart along the floor. Her fingers fidget. “I’ve managed this before. I’ll be alright.” The pause that follows tells Peridot that she’s trying to convince herself as much as the amethyst. “Just stay calm, and remember what we talked about."

“What the fuck are  _either_  of you talking about?

Peridot sighs. Gems should learn about their tools. “All units of pearl come equipped with a system of failsafes.” This particular unit came from a pretty archaic generation, but retrofitting measures luckily meant that she was still perfectly functional. “If the units become confused, or otherwise compromised from their primary objective function, their custodians can activate a latent soft reset that refocuses the behavior in a pleasant, positive fashion in lieu of more physically detrimental redirection.”

Glancing up, Peridot watches the amethyst’s face screwing round like a turbine is mixing it. “Less waste that way,” she finishes mildly.

“ _Knock_  –”  ** _Thnk_**  “That!”  _ **Thnk**  _“ _ **Off**!_ ”  _ **Thnk**._  The amethyst pounds against the wall for savage punctuation.

She snarls, wedging herself as close as she can to the opening of their shared cell wall without touching the destabilizer field. “Stop talking about Pearl like she’s one of your creepy little robots! She is a _gem_. We both are!”

 _Some very stupid ones._ Peridot wants to sneer. She sizzles a withering look instead, and says nothing.

“And refocusing? Refocusing  _what_  exactly? What  _objective_?”

“All pearls have the same objective,” Peridot says. “Obedience.”

The corridor falls quiet, and Peridot’s patience is about out. She’s ready to move on. As she double-checks the sequence prep on her personal display she hears the amethyst ask, milky and uncertain, “Pearl?”

This is getting tiring. Peridot goes on, preparing a backup audio log for her report and personal records. “I’m proceeding with questioning. Log date: 313. This is Peridot, performing preliminary information recovery with Earth hostiles. The pearl’s focus has become compromised, as a direct result of prolonged isolation from gem society and overexposure to Earth. A hard reset w–”

“ _Stop talking._ ”

Peridot flinches hard enough that she nearly drops the display.

The amethyst’s wailing and tantrumming are tolerable enough to adjust to but wildly different is the quiet, precise venom the pearl is now putting off in waves. The lighting in the room has snapped a little clearer and even behind the destabilizer field the pearl is pulled up tall, she’s  _tall,_  glowering clean and thin down her upcast chin and Peridot’s mind cups careful around the word 'guillotine.'

“I am,” deadly gentle, “a veteran of both wars for Earth, the hated ‘Rook of the Rebellion’ who led the charge on the Five Calderas, trusted right hand and lieutenant prime of Rose Quartz and I am  _not_  –” disdain crackles cold and her posture, too, “– a  _tool_.”

Her chin lowers; she relaxes. Peridot tries to unknot the fist she hadn’t noticed making.

“I am not a tool.” The pearl makes an easy, muted step to the side. Watchful. “Treat me as one at your peril.”

 _This gem has seen war._ Peridot’s lips itch.  _Servant or not. Orders or not, she’s killed._

Peridot has seen a gem smashed only once, during a public execution – certainly never killed, herself, never felt a life splinter and crack in the coil of her hand. She’s a technician. For fuck's sake. Useless on the battlefield. Can’t even summon a proper weapon.

An image crawls into mind and she tries to snuff it out: her, cracked and harried, limb missing, scrambling across a blackhole swell of biting scree and boneless soil and tumbling, falling, scraping lopsided down the slope – keeled onto her back, helpless as a moon – and looking up,  _up_  at the pearl, towering with her bolide coil of spear dipping slow and awful over Peridot’s gem like the last second on a clock –

But. But.

That... is not where they are. _This_ is not _that_.

Peridot’s cheek cramps, wanting to sneer.

Old battleaxes. Chasing war stories.

She’s already taken far too long respond, she knows. The amethyst is caterwauling again, insults, and threats maybe, sensing the edge of the exchange shifting.

Peridot intends to reclaim it.

She moves toward the destabilizer field, wrestling steadiness into her steps. Her personal display’s screen resists slightly under her fingertips as leans close into the pearl’s face and commands as she presses the refocusing sequence: “Speak when spoken to.”

The response is instant. The pearl jerks, her spine arching – she sucks in a gobbet of useless air and wobbles half a pace, forehead pinched in a grimace.

“Pearl? Pearl, you okay?” The amethyst is still wedged as close as she can in the corner, bubbling anxious. “Talk to me, P.”

The pearl has straightened again with the help of their shared wall.  “Amethyst, just –” One hand moves to press at her temple while she gathers herself, and Peridot watches. Each nervy breath the pearl pulls in feels like victory.  “Just… be calm. Stay calm. Remember what we agr–”

Peridot presses again and the pearl’s eyes shutter as she shivers and bites back a groan: her garment is thin enough that the clench of abdominal muscle is visible as she wilts forward from the middle. Her knees aren’t trembling but Peridot wants them to be.

She delivers another dose.

The amethyst is snarling again but Peridot finds her less interesting by the moment.

“ _Stop it!_  Stop _messing_ with her!”

“She isn’t in pain,” Peridot murmurs, watching the pearl balance bleary against the wall. Panting. Pawing. Like she’s wanting to scale it. “Refocusing is a very pleasant experience, as I understand.”

“I don’t give a shit if it’s giving her a foot massage, you’re  _fucking with her!_  She’s not a piece of  _equipment!_ ”

“To be of service is the greatest joy a pearl can know. You should feel grateful for her.” Peridot scowls, surprising herself. “Would that it were so easy for the rest of us.”

That raises a worthwhile question, though. Details had been sparse in the catalogs. Peridot doesn’t understand the exact nature of the experiential element of refocusing – would the pearl be able to verbalize anything useful?

Nonetheless. Peridot is pleased with the failsafe’s efficacy: the pearl’s posture has already begun to soften. Proud angles are being smoothed down, becoming more rounded, more lax. Lower to the floor. As if to bow. Towering veteran no longer.

Peridot feels a private thrill.

The pearl’s face is flushing, a full, lurid blue – another  _ridiculous_  human affectation she no doubt picked up on Earth – but Peridot nonetheless finds it… challenging, to look away, as the color spreads along the pearl’s cheeks, her jaw, threatening to encroach upon her neck.

Peridot licks her lips.

“Are you compliant?” she asks, and clears her throat. The air feels off. (She makes a mental note to check the ventilation.)

After that nice long pause, the pearl has recovered some – her eyes are still closed, but she’s pulling in air, slowly. Evenly. She seems to be thinking very, very hard as she holds herself steady against the wall of her cell.

“Are you  _compliant?_ ” Peridot lifts her display expectantly. “Explain the current status of Rose Quartz.”

The pearl’s speech is measured, but quavers in the middle. “Show us our comrades… all three… unharmed.” Her eyes are still closed, the lids flickering.

“This is  _not_ –” Peridot presses the switch and the pearl’s body clenches, posture intricate, “– a  _negotiation._ ”

She presses again and the pearl crumples to one knee. Stilts an unsteady arm to the wall to keep herself upright: her other hand rises to muffle a low, plump moan but never quite makes it, trembling instead to curl against her chest.

“N… no.” Her shoulder is bracing against the wall now, too – her chin dropping –

“ _Fucking stop it! You’re gonna hurt her!_ ”

“A-Ama,” choppy breaths, “Try ta st… uh–”

The pearl’s head sways thick, slowly. Like she’s trying to clear it.

“Try… c-calm…” The corners of her mouth are ribbed with small nerves and her eyes are dimming. The lids look impossibly heavy. 

Peridot presses again and the pearl  _groans_.

“You think you can get her to talk like this? She can’t even form a sentence! You’re frying her  _brain!_ ” More tantrumming from somewhere to Peridot’s left, somewhere far too far to be too interesting. “You soupcan FUCK!”

And all at once, Peridot’s focus begins to broaden again while the amethyst’s broiling, brawling insults taper off. The chemical composition of the air has been gradually changing, though not markedly enough to register.

But now both Peridot and the amethyst are noticing. Except for the pearl’s soft, confused little sounds, the corridor is silent.

“This…” The amethyst breaks the silence, sounding awed. “Is... is she  _coming?_ ”

_… oh._

Peridot blinks as the composition fully registers for her. "Sh-she."

Yes, uh. That.

“She’s.” That is... _definitely_ arousal. Peridot licks her lips. “B-becoming compliant.”

(She wars with the need to lick them again.)

“Oh!  _Ohhhh_  my fucking  _god!_ ” A slight straining, popping sound proves to be the amethyst literally pulling at her own hair -- tearing out a good few chunks. “You’re just gonna sit there and  _get her off_  ‘til she  _talks?!_ ”

This situation is spinning wildly.

“This… uh, this is standard.” Maybe. “A-and if you’re really so concerned, just give me the information I need!”

“What you  _need_ is to figure out what the fuck you’re  _doing!_ ”

“It’s not like it’s torture or anything!” Peridot hears herself approaching a shriek. Her professionalism is threatening delirious crumble, she knows, and her visor’s hot. Itchy. Fuck.

She adjusts it with a shaky hand. “She isn’t… this doesn’t hurt her. I’m not hurting her. This just – this is the simplest and,” she licks her lips, “most effective – way to –”

“You’re  _headfucking_ her, you shitty little  _freak!_ ”

The pearl’s head lifts, drunken. She murmurs something Peridot can’t quite make out and shakes her head – still flushed, but regaining herself, maybe. All her movements are boneless. Weak. Her breathing steadies as she leans heavy against the wall - shivery-careful - trying to rise –

Peridot presses the sequence again. Too hard. The pressure-sensitive display registers her panic as a double dose and the pearl reels against the wall with a gasp, sinking slow to her knees and whimpering sweetly. 

“ _Look at you!_ Two seconds from jerking yourself right here, you shitty little  _pervert!_ ”

“ _Sh-shut up! Stop talking!_ ”

Fucking. Fucking ridiculous. It’s time to get control of this situation.

“I’m –”  Peridot inhales, quick and shaky, half-wondering the last time she had bothered breathing for more than simple speech. “– I am returning the pearl to her base objective function of  _obedience_.”

The words sound mostly smooth. Peridot itches.

“Her natural state.” She licks her lips again. “You can stop me at any time by telling me about Rose Quartz.”

“ _Fuck_ you!  _Fuck yooouuu!_ ”

Saliva sails through the destabilizer field and flecks against the floor panels. The amethyst is raw with panic, and it’s good to see.

“Pearl – _Pearl_ , can you hear me?”

Doesn’t seem like it. She does go a bit still, though -- her breath quieting. 

“Listen, I know you can’t talk right now so you don’t have to say anything. But relax, ‘cause I won’t either! I’m not gonna say anything. Okay? So – so don’t worry!” The smile in her voice strains and drops away again.

The amethyst swallows, and when her mouth opens next her voice is thick. “I’m gonna stick to what we talked about. Okay? I’m not gonna let her trick me into talking.”

Peridot pauses. Looks between the two cells. Licks her lips.

"So don't -- don't worry, Pearl. We're gonna --"

Then presses the switch and  _holds_.

The pearl crumples. She shudders, there, on all shameful fours like some low, dumb thing, crying out rich and _helpless_ \-- she spills over with full, inescapable  _good_. Her head lowers in a bow and her hips shape shallow, dim little thrusts against nothing. She is shrinking in on herself. Her long fingers curl and lax (The amethyst roars, a ways away: “Stop it stop it stop it stop it–”) into little spasms of fists, cradling her brow, and her misshapen gem presses to the floor, now, and still shaking, all of her, trembling, still making those perfectly singular sounds that ought to be bottled and kept on a shelf.

Slim muscle flickers in her arms and neck as her body curls, trying to protect her – trying, and failing, and trying _still_ to bear the crush of compulsory bliss, and although Peridot abstains from food she knows now what they mean by the word ‘delectable’ –

“–stop it  _stop it STOP IT, LEAVE HER ALONE_ –”

“If you won’t talk, then I won’t hear you,” Peridot hisses cold, and flicks a finger along her display.

An enormous metal layer outside the destabilizer field slides home: the amethyst is mute, now. Peridot finds herself lighter with relief at the quiet. All except for the weak, plush little sounds of pleasure from the pearl's cell and the hum of Peridot’s monitor.

Even kneeling is beyond her now. A dollop of saliva has collected on the floor near her lips, sagged onto her side as she is. Half-curled and trembling lovely. Every few moments she tugs a sluggish elbow next to her chest -- as though to prop herself, as though to rise -- but then another rippling wave takes her and she is swallowed up, convulsing, chin reeling, eyes years away.

Her garments are a disheveled twist enough that a meek slice of white waist is visible, sinew jumping and plucking itself like a stringed thing. Sweat has formed along the skin. It’s a senseless bodily response – another learned, human affectation – but it looks… compelling.

Peridot licks her lips.

“You can feel free to speak, now.” She watches the pearl shake as this wave of the failsafe dwindles, having run its course. Perhaps she shouldn’t have held so long out of pettiness. “I was hoping the amethyst would give what she knew first, once she saw…  _heard_ you like this… but now you’re free to speak. You’re no longer in their custody.”

She's an unresponsive pile. Limbs and languor. Sides rising and falling, in a stunned rhythm, like taken prey.

“There’s no need to resist,” Peridot hears herself murmur. “It wasn’t your fault.”

She seems to shift, a bit, at the words... her chin twitches.

Peridot licks her lips. “You won’t be punished. I can promise.”

(Well. Maybe. It was one of the few things she could  _try_  to promise.)

 She moves closer with caution. “Can you hear me?” Her voice cracks a bit, but she can edit that out of the footage later. She hesitates again before commanding, careful, “Answer.”

After a long, worrying moment, the pearl’s chin twitches downward, small and watery. And then again: down there on the floor.

 _A nod._  A weak one, but an affirmation, by the Diamond!

A pleased rush comes over Peridot at the response, however small. “Very good. Can you speak?”

“Y…” The pearl breathes – begins gamely struggling upwards to face her. For a strange moment Peridot feels herself reaching to deactivate the destabilizer field to assist her.

But the Pearl regains her knees without any help. Carefully, tremulous _,_  she kneels to face her. And for the first time -- for the first time -- Peridot has a clear view of her eyes as she breathes. Her misshapen gem cants a faint glow of the corridor light. The Pearl blinks slowly and whispers, “Y-yes.”

“G… Um. Good.” Peridot clears her throat. “That’s good. You’re doing very well.”

(They’re a lurid, docile blue.)

She’s earnest to keep up these amenable responses. She feels the need to encourage. To reward. The Pearl is so much more agreeable after a little refocusing.

Peridot opens her mouth – thinks better of it – and clears her throat, first. Her voice cracks regardless. “Did that… um, did all that… feel good?”

Pearl’s head nods again. A bit steadier, now. A bit faster, too. More eager to answer. Quick to recover. The way a pearl should, and Peridot nods back for no real reason.

She wants something else to give her. A reward. Something softer than the failsafe – something gentler. The Pearl seems all numbed out with too much dizzying  _good_ – too much sensory. Something softer. She feels a compulsion to… comfort. Pat her head, maybe. Very carefully.

But that would not bring much comfort. Peridot’s fingers would not have much comfort to give. Cold metal. Floating scrap. Anyone would shrink away from the touch, bewildered, but especially this - this lovely, weakened little thing - scrubbed clean and new and willing.

Just because their physical bodies are illusions doesn’t mean that they don’t work. Peridot knows this; her chest tightens. (Maybe another time.)

Another time… that isn’t so outlandish, is it? Peridot had recovered her. Had contained her, had made her compliant. A pearl would be perfect to supplement her maintenance efforts and it would be easy, really, so  _simple_  to put out a request to have this one enlisted in her own budget.

It made a kind of sense, really. Gems value few laws more than ‘finders keepers.’

(How often can pearls handle this? How long before it begins to stress their gems?)

(Peridot hopes never.) 

She licks her lips. “How are you feeling?”

The Pearl opens her mouth immediately to answer – but can only make a rough croak. Her face furls, nervous, and she opens her mouth to try again. This time she gestures carefully to her neck: “W–” clears her throat; bows her head; licks her lips, “– w-water?”

Peridot balks for a moment before comprehension snicks into place.

“Do you need to hydrate?”

An immediate nod in reply.

Another strange, human habit, bled into her after so much time on Earth. They could do away with that, though. No worry.

“Yes… yes, alright. Wait a moment.”

The ship still requires some amount of water as a cooling element in the engines. It’s otherwise scarce. Peridot shuffles through a few panes of the ship’s controls on her personal display, and a panel at the Pearl’s side opens with a small container of the stuff. Not as clean as she is used to, maybe, but she would hardly complain.

Slowly, still shaking-weak, Pearl brings the cup to her lips and tips it. Her throat moves gently, taking water in.

Peridot watches. She expects it to look ridiculous and she is wrong.

“Can you stand?” she asks, foggy. Shakes her head. Trying to clear it.

She’s impatient, too, not waiting for an answer. Another flicker through her personal display activates the panels in the floor to shift, which ferries the meekly kneeling Pearl to the mouth of the cell like a conveyor belt. Perhaps not unlike her original production line.

She's still clutching her cup of water to her chest, like she’s worried it may spill, and sits ready to answer as Peridot goes on. “When you finish hydrating, rise to your feet. Then we’ll talk about Rose Quartz.”

And perhaps because gems don’t need to hydrate – because containment engineers have never considered the need – the destabilizer field’s design allows the water to make its merry way through when Pearl hurls the contents of her cup into Peridot’s face.

The personal display sizzles with a horrible, expensive crackling and her visor fogs with the sudden roaring heat and moisture and all Peridot can hear over the sound of her frying tech is a hoarse “ _Go fuck yourself_.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how spaceships work lmaoooo (mashes random keys)
> 
> As of SB3 I suppose I've been Jossed with my take on Peridot, but I'm still attached to her as an awkward, sweaty nerd who doesn't socialize much and so has a lot of habits like licking her lips and snorting that she doesn't notice. I also love the idea of her having prosthetic limbs because her gem was shaven down, meaning she can't regenerate them properly. (I can't remember where I read that...)
> 
> I also like to think that gem culture sees other gems as their gem type - uncapitalized - at first, but begin to see them as specific Jaspers or Pearls once they get attached.
> 
> Thanks for reading this weird porn


End file.
